My thoughts on poison damage for Dragonknights (Please keep it civil)

Alucardo · February 2016

OK, so there was a thread for this, but it closed for review most likely because of the disgusting, unwarranted behaviour directed at Wrobel. In case you missed it, he was actually trying to help Stam DKs so you don't have to split points between so many trees and consolidate all your DoT damage into Mighty, just like magicka doesn't need to any more.
No other details were given because it was just something he was thinking about, yet a lot of people went on a rant for no reason.

I was late to the party on that post before it was closed so I just wanted to give my take on it in a constructive manner.

Honestly, I like it, if it's done right. There's a few things they need to think about.

1. If you're stamina, the ardent flame passives will need to enhance poison damage, not flame
2. People roll Dark Elves to get the most out of DKs with their increased flame damage. A solution is to have 7% flame and 7% poison damage bonus, making the Dark Elf truly versatile for both Magicka and Stam builds, while at the same time not breaking the passive for existing dark elves. Considering poison and flame are separate entities as far as magicka and stam damage goes, I don't think it'd be too much of a problem to add this. Another option is to give them a 4% increase to all disease, poison and flame damage, but I think the first option is going to be the safest.

If they were looked into and done correctly it could be a really nice change. Dark Elf is about being dynamic. They already have max stam and magicka, having a passive to increase their poison (physical) and flame (magicka) damage just makes sense to me anyway.

Feel free to leave a comment, but PLEASE keep it civil and remember Wrobel never said he was intending on doing this - it was just an idea to help stam DKs, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Edit: There's been a lot of love for giving Argonians the 7% poison damage bonus, and that sounds like a great idea. With a bonus to poison damage, healing buff, and ability to get resources back when using pots as well as ultimates, these guys would make some slick DKs.

SkylarkAU · February 2016

Stam DKs would be better off with poison dots instead of flame, 25% damage bonus from Mighty CP vs 7% racial passive.. sounds good to me.

I wouldn't be suprised if a lot of Dark Elf stam DKs rolled back to magicka next patch anyway, no doubt many were running magicka before it was nerfed harder than a scruffy herder.

D0ntevenL1ft · February 2016

Yes yes yes x100 on your second statement. The only thing poison would be then missing is some of the passives from ardent flame DOT passives but the suggestion to incorporate 7% to flame and poison is great. This would then allow for players (such as myself) who enjoy switching back and forth between magicka and stamina without having to lose racial passive advantages, which (despite what others argue) do hold a somewhat significant impact in end game scenarios.

Edit: inb4 dark elf master race complaints

Aquanova · February 2016

I would just like a chance to test this change on the PTS to see its merits as far as stam dk goes. It could turn out to make dks the first class to achieve balance between stam and magicka. I'm interested!

Alucardo · February 2016

Aquanova wrote: »

I would just like a chance to test this change on the PTS to see its merits as far as stam dk goes. It could turn out to make dks the first class to achieve balance between stam and magicka. I'm interested!

Absolutely. I think we've all seen that magicka is going to be top dog in the upcoming patch. With the 25% physical damage reduction and the fact they can just stack all their points into Elemental defender to boost their normal AND DoT damage means they clearly have an advantage.
Having our DoTs purely physical (ie: poison) is bridging that gap a little.

danno8 · February 2016

I think he is on to something.

Several complaints pointed to the fact that currently the "Mighty" star already increased the damage on certain flame based abilities, so the change would be somewhat unnecessary. It would be good if that were confirmed to be a bug or WAI.

I would have to say "no" to buffing Dunmer though. If that change went through, Dunmer would be the one and only class anyone should ever chose for DK, far and away. I would prefer to see race changes in-game, so anyone who feels they got the shaft for choosing a certain race for min-max reasons can simply switch it out.

You can't make racial passives make differences of up to 21% in some cases and then keep changing them during the course of the games life when there are no options for players to change them.

slumber_sandb16_ESO · February 2016

I'd rather just have straight up physical damage than poison. I chose DK just as much for style as I did function, never been a fan of poison and if skills change to that then I'll be hugely put off to continue playing it. Stamina tank btw.

Alucardo · February 2016

danno8 wrote: »

I would have to say "no" to buffing Dunmer though. If that change went through, Dunmer would be the one and only class anyone should ever chose for DK, far and away. I would prefer to see race changes in-game, so anyone who feels they got the shaft for choosing a certain race for min-max reasons can simply switch it out.

That's a fair call. I don't play Dunmer, but I did think about them when making this post because 7% flame bonus would be completely useless to stam dks if it were changed to poison. Just trying to cover all bases.

yake82 · February 2016

I have nothing against poison dk idea but i think that poison damage racial would be more Argonian style.

Alucardo · February 2016

yake82 wrote: »

I have nothing against poison dk idea but i think that poison damage racial would be more Argonian style.

That's actually not bad. With their increased healing, resources back on pots (on top of resources back on ultimates) and increased poison damage, Argonians could be a good choice for DKs.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

i think if you would also give the poison damage bonus to dunmer they would get a bit to OP

Alucardo · February 2016

Artjuh90 wrote: »

i think if you would also give the poison damage bonus to dunmer they would get a bit to OP

I don't think it would be too bad. To make use of poison and flame you'd have to run some kind of weird hybrid build which just doesn't work. As someone mentioned, it might make them TOO viable for DKs, which I can see happening, but I don't think they'd be OP.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

Alucardo wrote: »

Artjuh90 wrote: »

i think if you would also give the poison damage bonus to dunmer they would get a bit to OP

I don't think it would be too bad. To make use of poison and flame you'd have to run some kind of weird hybrid build which just doesn't work. As someone mentioned, it might make them TOO viable for DKs, which I can see happening, but I don't think they'd be OP.

rather see argonians get that buff as mentioned earlier so i can taste the tears of all who hated argonians and all have FOTM and min/max.
2016 the year of the argonian!

RAGUNAnoOne · February 2016

No to dark elves having poison as well if anything give it to argonians

Warraxx · February 2016

meh, most of the good poison sets do not come in vr16...

Mashille · February 2016

I think it would be great, if instead of giving Dark elves both 7% Poison and Flame, why not Change the Argonian 'Disease Resistance' to be 'Disease Potency' which increases Damage with poison and disease by 7% as well as adding the resistance.

Or remove the quick to mend and give Disease potency which increases damage of poison and disease by 7% and increases max stamina by 3%

WalkingLegacy · February 2016

I prefer them to go back and fix, re-categorize the dragonknight trees. Synergize the abilities to their passives (a lot of classes need this).

Adding another variable for them to balance and fix on top of the current mess will only add to the mess is how I feel.

I am all for differences in the trees though, a fire tree and poison tree for example but there has to be synergies and that I do not have faith in ZOS accomplishing.

vladimilianoub17_ESO1 · February 2016

Give poison damage racial to another race for more variety.A race with stam bonuses racial maybe?

Forestd16b14_ESO · February 2016

Sorry but no changing the stamina morphs to be poison would be a double nerf to stamina base DKs because of the new hardy that is coming in U9. It reduces both physical and poison damage now the 2 most used forms of attacks for stamina base builds changing the fire damage to poison wouldn't be a buff but a nerf convincing even more players to go to magical base DKs that stamina base DKS and or DK tanks because as you all might have notice is how magical base players are always crying about how they die to easy cause "stamina builds to OP" so instead of investing into a proper defense ZOS is just giving them a flat resistance buff to stamina base builds with the new hardy and it only takes 27 CP to get to 10% now imagine if they pooled all their warrior points int hardy.

Plus the stamina morphs the only 2 DKs have are already powered up by mighty.

Also if their gonna start making poison dragons they might as well give players options to be fire, frost, sock, or poison base that way those stamina base DKs and DK tanks can stay fire if they want or try frost.

Husan · February 2016

yake82 wrote: »

I have nothing against poison dk idea but i think that poison damage racial would be more Argonian style.

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

No to dark elves having poison as well if anything give it to argonians

vladimilianoub17_ESO1 wrote: »

Give poison damage racial to another race for more variety.A race with stam bonuses racial maybe?

Seems like you guys get it. A nice way of doing it would be to give argonians extra poison damage. It goes well with the lore (shadowscales) and it helps to bring the class up a tier or two

. I like this idea a lot.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention I actually like the idea of stam dks being the poison dudes

Ra'Shtar · February 2016

I just can't see a mighty dragonknight that is all about that fire spitting poison like some common lamia.

corrosivechains · February 2016

I appreciate what you're trying to say here OP but some of your suggested answers to those who complained are a bit ill-informed(like giving dark elves a poison boost alongside the fire, they're already 1 of the top 3 races for racials).

What the poison idea has effectively done is shown a giant spotlight on how clueless the development team is on the initial class designs as well as the "play as you want" philosophy that was a foundation to the initial design of the game. They have this "either/or" mentality which doesn't fit at all with how the classes were drawn up, or the setting in general. The initial intent from people like Nick Konkle wasn't to make people choose one resource pool over the other, but to mimic the hybrid class design that has been a staple of the series since it's inception with Arena.

The whole "you're either magicka or you're wrong" design philosophy we're getting now needs to be reigned back in, whether it's bringing back in soft-caps, or just making our resource pools only be resource pools with no bonus to our abilities. This way we can see ideas like spellcrafting, hybrids, and build diversity come back into the game.

I wouldn't mind the poison idea so much if it didn't pigeon-hole an entire classes playstyle, as more choices is always a good thing, but this design philosophy is removing choices, not adding to them.

Forestd16b14_ESO · February 2016

corrosivechains wrote: »

I appreciate what you're trying to say here OP but some of your suggested answers to those who complained are a bit ill-informed(like giving dark elves a poison boost alongside the fire, they're already 1 of the top 3 races for racials).

What the poison idea has effectively done is shown a giant spotlight on how clueless the development team is on the initial class designs as well as the "play as you want" philosophy that was a foundation to the initial design of the game. They have this "either/or" mentality which doesn't fit at all with how the classes were drawn up, or the setting in general. The initial intent from people like Nick Konkle wasn't to make people choose one resource pool over the other, but to mimic the hybrid class design that has been a staple of the series since it's inception with Arena.

The whole "you're either magicka or you're wrong" design philosophy we're getting now needs to be reigned back in, whether it's bringing back in soft-caps, or just making our resource pools only be resource pools with no bonus to our abilities. This way we can see ideas like spellcrafting, hybrids, and build diversity come back into the game.

I wouldn't mind the poison idea so much if it didn't pigeon-hole an entire classes playstyle, as more choices is always a good thing, but this design philosophy is removing choices, not adding to them.

Well Wrobel and them have apparently been talking about negating the max resources effect max damage to maybe cut back on the DPS gap.

corrosivechains · February 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

corrosivechains wrote: »

I appreciate what you're trying to say here OP but some of your suggested answers to those who complained are a bit ill-informed(like giving dark elves a poison boost alongside the fire, they're already 1 of the top 3 races for racials).

What the poison idea has effectively done is shown a giant spotlight on how clueless the development team is on the initial class designs as well as the "play as you want" philosophy that was a foundation to the initial design of the game. They have this "either/or" mentality which doesn't fit at all with how the classes were drawn up, or the setting in general. The initial intent from people like Nick Konkle wasn't to make people choose one resource pool over the other, but to mimic the hybrid class design that has been a staple of the series since it's inception with Arena.

The whole "you're either magicka or you're wrong" design philosophy we're getting now needs to be reigned back in, whether it's bringing back in soft-caps, or just making our resource pools only be resource pools with no bonus to our abilities. This way we can see ideas like spellcrafting, hybrids, and build diversity come back into the game.

I wouldn't mind the poison idea so much if it didn't pigeon-hole an entire classes playstyle, as more choices is always a good thing, but this design philosophy is removing choices, not adding to them.

Well Wrobel and them have apparently been talking about negating the max resources effect max damage to maybe cut back on the DPS gap.

If this were any other team that would give me hope, but for some reason this just fills me with more misgivings :P

strikeback1247 · February 2016

OH DAMN werewolves are gonna love this!

danno8 · February 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

Sorry but no changing the stamina morphs to be poison would be a double nerf to stamina base DKs because of the new hardy that is coming in U9. It reduces both physical and poison damage now the 2 most used forms of attacks for stamina base builds changing the fire damage to poison wouldn't be a buff but a nerf convincing even more players to go to magical base DKs that stamina base DKS and or DK tanks because as you all might have notice is how magical base players are always crying about how they die to easy cause "stamina builds to OP" so instead of investing into a proper defense ZOS is just giving them a flat resistance buff to stamina base builds with the new hardy and it only takes 27 CP to get to 10% now imagine if they pooled all their warrior points int hardy.

Plus the stamina morphs the only 2 DKs have are already powered up by mighty.

Also if their gonna start making poison dragons they might as well give players options to be fire, frost, sock, or poison base that way those stamina base DKs and DK tanks can stay fire if they want or try frost.

Help me out here.

If the 2 stamina morphs and all the physical damage for stamina DK's are both increased by one star, namely Mighty, why is that balanced when opponents have to use 2 stars, namely Elemental Defender and Hardy, to reduce the two different damages?

Is it balanced when one class has to invest twice as many CP's as another for counter-balance?

RAGUNAnoOne · February 2016

keybaud wrote: »

I think it would be great, if instead of giving Dark elves both 7% Poison and Flame, why not Change the Argonian 'Disease Resistance' to be 'Disease Potency' which increases Damage with poison and disease by 7% as well as adding the resistance.

Or remove the quick to mend and give Disease potency which increases damage of poison and disease by 7% and increases max stamina by 3%

Do NOT remove quick to mend it is the ONLY passive that is remotely useful getting rid of that for something that only helps 2 builds both stamina is a bad idea.

Anilahation · February 2016

Why can't they just make stamina DKs increases physical damage, and dots are bleeds(which are physical) instead of poison.

We don't need to be SnakeKnights.

Leave that for Stamina Necromancers.

sylviermoone · February 2016

I think some of the issue could be related to people thinking about this idea in terms of how the Champion trees are currently laid out, instead of thinking about it in terms of the changes coming to those trees with TG.

If I recall, magic damage and all elemental damage increase will be governed by one star, and physical, poison and disease damage increase governed by another. Also, damage reduction abilities will be similarly consolidated, no?

Going by that, and looking forward to the long term implications, it seems to me that this change makes sense, not only for DK's, but also for stamina morphs of skills in the other classes as well. It would seem to me that it would be better to be able to consolidate CP's spent to increase damage to one star, rather than to have to split them up amongst multiple stars.

I also think that revamping racial abilities for Argonians to include an increase to poison damage is a neat idea, when looked at in conjunction with these other possible scenarios. While Dunmer is a popular race choice for DK's, it isn't the only viable choice, and offering racial passives that synergize well seems like it would only offer MORE freedom of choice.

It is entirely possible that I'm missing something here, but I think it could be a positive change, not just for DK's, but for other stamina classes as well.

Forestd16b14_ESO · February 2016

danno8 wrote: »

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

Sorry but no changing the stamina morphs to be poison would be a double nerf to stamina base DKs because of the new hardy that is coming in U9. It reduces both physical and poison damage now the 2 most used forms of attacks for stamina base builds changing the fire damage to poison wouldn't be a buff but a nerf convincing even more players to go to magical base DKs that stamina base DKS and or DK tanks because as you all might have notice is how magical base players are always crying about how they die to easy cause "stamina builds to OP" so instead of investing into a proper defense ZOS is just giving them a flat resistance buff to stamina base builds with the new hardy and it only takes 27 CP to get to 10% now imagine if they pooled all their warrior points int hardy.

Plus the stamina morphs the only 2 DKs have are already powered up by mighty.

Also if their gonna start making poison dragons they might as well give players options to be fire, frost, sock, or poison base that way those stamina base DKs and DK tanks can stay fire if they want or try frost.

Help me out here.

If the 2 stamina morphs and all the physical damage for stamina DK's are both increased by one star, namely Mighty, why is that balanced when opponents have to use 2 stars, namely Elemental Defender and Hardy, to reduce the two different damages?

Is it balanced when one class has to invest twice as many CP's as another for counter-balance?

Yes cause that class also has access to (and even officially confirmed by ZOS) the strongest defense in the game which is damage shields.

Gilliamtherogue · February 2016

I overall agree with the idea of giving a class a 2ndary element aside from its key one, since it'd just make sense to allow diversity. However, I do not think DK's 2ndary should be poison, it just doesn't fit at all with the core identity of the class. What are the two main elements of dragons? Fire, and... Frost. Yes, the ever so cliche Frost Knight should become a second thing. I know it goes against the whole purpose of the reason to change it (CP being split) but honestly CP is the issue, NOT the class's damage dealing. Nightblades should have their secondary be poison, as it would make most sense with the rogue play style. Templars should have disease as their secondary since it kind of plays into a Leper role, a warrior with purpose but scorned by the Divines, so it uses their once known attunement to light magics to channel disease and pestilence. (Forgive the edgy and lame explanation). Now for the final one, something that most people are going to be a little surprised about.

Currently in ESO there are different 6 well known types of damage sources; Physical, Fire, Frost, Lightning, Disease, and Poison. However there is one other damage source that not many players know about, unless they played back in the days prior to ESO:TU. This damage is called "Daedric" and is bound to very few abilities from bosses and a few sources players can get their hands on. Daedric Damage is actually bound to the old Thaumaturge passive, and still secretly is (not sure if Zenimax overlooked the coding change or if it was to be a hidden relic of the past). Here is a screen of one of the very few items that allowed players to deal this damage
Aether%20Staff%20of%20Enervation%20%28V12%29%20-%20Destructive%20Mage%20Set.png

Aether%20Staff%20of%20Enervation%20%28V12%29%20-%20Destructive%20Mage%20Set.png

This set still exists in game although remains at v14, but still scales with CP despite not being mentioned in the CP tooltips. Since Sorcerers deal with summoning Daedric entities and more "Dark Magic" it would be a no brainer if their 2ndary damage source was Daedric damage.

Beyond this, to answer the real issue that this whole controversial topic sprang from, CP should have two different raw damage source amplifications, similar to the current Mighty vs Elemental Expert. Instead of giving damage values to specific damage types, it should simply be increases damage done by Class skills and then another by Weapon skills, OR even better, Magicka based abilities and Stamina based abilities (ultimates would then scale with whichever node based on your highest stats). This would answer so many issues of "this spec has an advantage over my spec because it only needs 3 CP nodes compared to my 5" and so on.